


a second spring

by voksen



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Javert Survives, Epistolary, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-04-07
Packaged: 2018-01-18 02:28:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1411579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voksen/pseuds/voksen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she wakes early and notices that her father is gone, Cosette slips out alone in hopes of finding some sign of Marius.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the dawn discovers a policeman in place of a martin's nest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mairewolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mairewolf/gifts).



Cosette's first reaction, on seeing the silhouette of a tall man across the road, near the wall of the riverbanks, was pure and unfettered relief: she had been wandering lost for what felt like ages, keeping her eyes open as best she could, and seen nobody. On wings of fancy, she had been imagining that perhaps some great hand had reached down into Paris and plucked away all the people, but had somehow missed her and her alone. This would explain very well the strange disappearance of her papa from his bed in the middle of the night -- but, after all, he did sometimes simply go out, and there _had_ been shadows moving behind curtains at the tops of the tenements all along, and here was a man, in the flesh. It had been a silly fancy, she knew that, like the time she had thought the chimney looked like a shadow of a man itself, but for a few moments it had seemed so real...

She gathered herself and hurried quietly towards him so as not to disturb anyone by calling aloud, her heart beating quickly with hope and excitement. Perhaps - if he could give her directions - she might be able to get back to the apartment (oh, she hated to think of the place in the Rue de l'Homme Armé as home!) before papa came home, and before Toussaint awoke, and nobody would ever know she had been so foolish as to go out alone to try to find her way back to the house on the Rue Plumet. But before she drew quite near, he removed his hat and set it atop the parapet before him, and she paused briefly in puzzlement. It was like watching a shadowplay; she could not see his face, nor hardly anything of him, and yet -- and yet, something about the set of his shoulders, or perhaps the slight tilt of his head, stirred something in her, something uneasy and long-forgotten. "Monsieur!" she called softly; hardly more than a whisper, really, an old instinct warning her against drawing too much notice.

The man started violently, spinning around; his hat, caught on the brim by the sleeve of his coat, tumbled off the edge of the parapet into the gloom behind him. "Oh!" Cosette gasped, but he did not seem to notice either the loss of his hat or her surprise and only stared out towards her, silent and unmoving. No doubt he could see no better than she, she thought, and slowly, so as not to startle him more, came closer.

At the corner of the road along the Seine and each bridge that spanned it there stood a lamp-post; he stood between two of them, in a notch of shadow where the light did not quite reach, but still as she drew nearer she could see him better than before. He was as tall as she had thought him; his hair was ruffled by the abrupt removal of his hat, but there was still an odd sort of dignity about him, a lingering mix of -- of nobility and weary sadness, she thought, like the men in the wonderful gothics Christine and Marguerite had smuggled into the convent when they were girls. How had they put it? An air of tragedy. And besides, if this man was not exactly handsome by anyone's standards, he could surely pass for _mysteriously rugged_ , which had always been accounted nearly as good.

It had all been very romantic on the page, and it seemed just as much so in the flesh -- but there was still that worry in the back of her mind, that nagging sense of half-forgotten danger. Not that he seemed dangerous, quite; the feeling she got from him was altogether different. Cosette stepped deliberately into the edge of the light cast by one of the lamp-posts, so that he might see her better as well. "Monsieur," she said again, "I am sorry to disturb you -- but do you know where we are?"

He twitched again as she spoke, as if jerked out of deep thought or contemplation, and took half a step backwards, pressing himself against the stone behind him almost as if he were afraid of her. When she had finished, he passed a hand over his face, then steadied himself on the wall. "It cannot be," he muttered to himself, glancing briefly away across the river. After a moment he looked back, this time staring at her quite frankly. "No," he said in the same low tone, "no, I see now--" and then, at last addressing her and gesturing abruptly with his free hand in one direction and then the other, "-- the Pont Notre-Dame is that way; the Pont au Change, there."

Cosette had thought that might be so, but the city looked rather different after dark and alone; she suspected that had been how she had made a wrong turn in the first place. And then, if she had done so once, might she not do so again? "And could you give me some directions?"

"I might," he said. He had not yet stopped staring, but it was a singularly inoffensive stare; more the sort one indulged in when trying to figure out when the man across the street was one's papa or not, rather than when one was being too forward. "To where?"

"Rue de l'Homme Armé."

At that the man took an abrupt step forward toward her; Cosette retreated further back into the lamplight. "Rue--" he said, and stopped.

His eyes had gone slightly wild as he stepped into the light, but Cosette was not afraid; there was no danger, though she could not have said how she knew it; she simply knew, as simply and instinctively as that, that whatever troubled him so deeply lay within him alone. "Rue de l'Homme Armé," she repeated, and then, glancing briefly up to his disorderly gray hair, added, "Will you take me there, Monsieur? I would not want to get lost again."

"Will I take you to the Rue de l'Homme Armé," he said, and grimaced. It might have been intended to be a smile, or else a scowl; it reminded her of nothing so much as the way a cat might bare its teeth if its tail was pulled too sharply. "Yes! Yes, and why not-- I know the way. I should."

"Thank you," Cosette said, but he had already turned away and begun to walk quickly and determinedly, with long strides that forced her to hurry even to keep up at his heels. His large hands were clasped behind him, so tightly locked around each other that the knuckles stood out pale and bloodless. And he had not even looked for his hat before setting out, she thought, frowning at his back, or given any sort of sign that he had noticed he had lost it at all. Perhaps he was absent-minded? That might explain the talking to himself and even the deep agitation -- if he had forgotten something even more important than the hat.

For several minutes they walked in silence; then suddenly he paused and glanced back, as if to make sure she was still there. As she had been staring thoughtfully at his shoulders, their eyes met; he twitched visibly and looked away, across the forking of the river to the towers of the cathedral. Cosette followed his gaze; she had seen it before, of course, now and then, but never at night. Like the rest of the city, it seemed to have taken on a completely different character -- mysterious and ghostlike, giving her a delicious shiver of excitement.

"Come, then," the man said abruptly, turning his back on both river and cathedral and proceeding at the same quick pace down the road opposite.

"Do you often walk at night, monsieur?" she asked, after she had caught him up again. He did not seem even to have to look about to be sure of the streets; if she could have said the same for herself, then perhaps she would never have met him.

His shoulders hunched slightly, almost like he expected to be struck. "Yes," he said, and hesitated a moment as if he meant to go on, but said no more.

Another mystery! Torn between her curiosity and the certainty that pressing further would be rude, Cosette bit her lip in frustration. At least when this happened in the stories, the heroines were generally trapped by circumstance in a terribly romantic manor-house with their tall, dark strangers; she had only the odious apartment to look forward to for a long and lonely week, and then most likely she would never see France again, let alone her mysterious stranger, or -- or anyone else. And she had not even been able to find the Rue Plumet in the dark, to see whether there had been any more notes left there, since she had gotten none in reply to her own. She lifted her chin, determined, and noticed suddenly that she recognized the houses to either side -- they were nearly there, and had had to make only one turn. As if she needed to feel any sillier!

When they reached the Rue de l'Homme Armé, he stopped again beneath the corner lamp and looked for a long while at the street-plaque before turning again to her. "There," he said. "You know the house you are looking for." There was no question in his voice; only a strange certainty that sounded almost like fear.

"Yes," she replied, glancing up the street. There were no lights shining in the windows of their top floor apartment, as there no doubt would have been if papa had returned home and found her missing. With that much, at least, it seemed luck was on her side. "Just there -- number 7."

He paled visibly at the words, and though he did not quite draw away from her, he seemed almost to retreat into his greatcoat. Puzzled by this inexplicable reaction beyond any possibility of not prying a bit further, she went on: "I live there, with my papa, M. Fauchelevent. Do you know him?"

"Your papa!" he said, shocked and, she thought, perhaps a bit relieved, though the color did not entirely return to his face. "Then you are the daughter --" But there he checked himself short, his eyes flickering between her and no. 7. "How did you come to be outside tonight?"

"I was... I had left something of mine in the garden," she said, thinking it safest to avoid the slightest mention of Marius, "But I got lost on the way there, and then again on the way back, and then I found you instead, monsieur."

His brow creased as he watched her; he made a tiny, helpless gesture, little more than a twitch, then locked his arms behind his back again. "Then he did not know you were gone," he said. "M. Fauchelevent. He did not..."

"No," Cosette agreed. "I woke in the night and remembered that I had forgotten it, but he was not at home. I thought I could go and get it quickly, before he returned, and-- and so I have."

The man laughed, a short, harsh bark that sounded quite unpracticed and a little pained. "You have not. I walked with your papa to that doorstep myself less than an hour past."

"Oh," she said, faintly, and looked reflexively back to the house. The lights were still not lit. She had left her pillows and bolsters beneath the blankets, as the other girls' stories had always said to do; perhaps they had worked just as advertised, although she hadn't really thought -- well! In any case, if papa was home, her time was running out. She had better get home, and soon.

And yet something wasn't quite right; perhaps it was the coincidence of having found one of her papa's friends when she had not even known he had any, besides the priest at the church, or perhaps the sense of danger she had felt at the bank of the Seine lingered still. In any case, after only a step she looked back.

The man had not moved; he was standing like a stone statue, watching her. Suddenly she felt that there was a choice before her that could change everything, if only she took it, and that no one else but she could decide it. And -- that if she did not, but left him standing on the corner and went home, everything would remain the same: they would go away to England and there would be no more mysteries and no more romance, and she might as well never have left the silence of the cloister. It was hardly a choice at all.

"But you must come in, too," she said, quickly, before she could reconsider. "Monsieur. You do not look at all well -- and it is so late. Since you know my father it will be quite all right." 

"Come in? No! He would not thank you for that, Mlle..."

"Cosette," she said. He did look terribly weary, in body and, she fancied, in soul; there could be no doubt that a rest inside would do him far more good than continuing to walk the streets -- or to staring at the river so intently as he had been doing... And in any case, she did not intend to be thwarted; she raised her chin slightly, as she did occasionally when papa was being difficult, and said quite firmly: "I insist. You must come. He would not thank me for leaving anyone on the street in such a state."

He wavered visibly, clearly caught between inherent, natural reluctance and the urge and instinct to give her her own way -- she had seen the same look many times before, on her papa's kinder, softer features. When after a moment he did not give in, she took a few more quick steps and touched him lightly on the arm, ignoring his shocked gasp, but noting the way he almost trembled under her touch. She looked up, catching his unsteady gaze with her own, and said, feeling madly wild and daring with her newly-grasped freedom, "Come with me, monsieur."

 

They slipped unseen through the door of no 7, as the porter was still abed -- her stranger had gone oddly silent and unresisting the moment she had taken his arm, but she could hardly protest to that -- and up the long, narrow stairs. As they reached the apartment door, Cosette had to let go of him to fumble again with Toussaint's keys, as she rarely did the locking-up. When she had found the proper one, she opened the door as silently as she could.

But everything was still and dark within, the only sounds the soft rustle of their clothing and the loud pounding of her own heart. She closed the door behind her stranger, locked it again, and hung the keys back on their peg. "Well," she said under her breath, "so that's that."

He did not answer; he had not, in fact, spoken again since he had tried to object in the street outside. In the darkness of the hallway, he might have been mistaken for the shadow of the hat-stand. Cosette, being well used to strange silences, took him gently by the elbow again and led him through the sleeping apartment and into the kitchen. The stove, banked until the morning, glowed dimly across the room; it gave just enough light that when she looked up at him, the dreadful exhaustion and pain in his face were unmistakable. Outside they had been half-hidden ghosts; the climb up the stairs must have worn away his last defenses.

He sat without protest when she pulled a chair out from the little table for him and observed her with such focus as she stoked the stove back to life and set on the kettle that she paused with her hand on the tea-box. "Do you prefer coffee, monsieur?"

"What?" he said, as if he had been half-lost in some deep trance, and then, "I -- it does not matter."

"You ought to have something hot, I think," she said. "Coffee is no trouble; papa prefers it, you know, in the mornings. But since it is late I thought tea might be better. And something to eat-- please. You must."

His gathering frown flickered and faded away. "I should not," he said. "I should not be here."

Cosette turned back to the tea-things and set them out firmly, then retrieved the last bit of white bread from the breadbox and brought it to the table with the butter and marmalade. "Why not, if you and papa came here together earlier?"

"He would have been as glad to see my back as I was obliged to give it to him."

If none of it made much sense, well, at least she was used to that -- but he was talking again, which was most likely good for him, and he was answering her questions, which was good for her. "Please eat something," she said, nudging the plate towards him, "you still look quite ill." Turning away, she checked on the kettle, which was not quite boiling; then, casually and with her back still towards him, as if the answer was nothing at all, as if the question was something she might have asked papa as a matter of course, asked: "Whatever were you two doing so late at night?"

"A fool's errand," he said, and laughed again, as painfully and terribly as before; when she peeked behind herself, he had buried his face in his hands, his long fingers tangled in his hair, ignoring the food. "Trying to save a dead man. He has made a hobby of it, if not a vocation."

"A dead man?"

"Or perhaps two."

She puzzled at it for a moment -- was someone sick? If someone had fallen ill in the night -- but papa was no doctor or priest, and she could not think why someone would send for him. Steam bloomed from the kettle before she could think of anything; she filled the pot and brought it with the cups to the table. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing. He had gone to the barricades and brought some young fool out of them, that's all."

"To the barricades?" Cosette asked, catching her breath. But he had returned safely; he must have, or else they would not be sitting so calmly. "But they did not call him up, surely...?"

At this, the man took his head from his hands and looked at her sharply over his fingers; she had thought him like a cat before, but now he resembled nothing so much as a dog catching scent. "Call him up?"

"The guard," she said, "if there was some trouble--"

He closed his eyes and rested his head in his palms once more. "Of course," he said, somewhat muffled, "of course it was his uniform. That makes three in one night, for he must have given it away. Yes, that would be like him."

Cosette was beginning to get a vague image of the night's events, strange and mysterious though they still seemed, but _how_ and _why_ her quiet papa had gone out to do such things was still a mystery. But the tea had steeped, so she poured it and sat down in the chair across the small table. "Monsieur, I am afraid I do not understand quite what happened tonight."

"How should anyone understand the impossible?" he muttered -- but he did look up at the sound of the tea being poured. A strange grimace passed over his face so briefly she almost thought she imagined it and then he lifted it with a muttered thanks and took a sip.

"Sugar?" she asked, reaching for some for her own.

He shook his head and drank again, a quick, gulping swallow, and then set the cup down in its saucer with a rattle. "I don't know how he came to be there. But they would have killed me, and he let me go, though he had no cause to; and he dragged that boy across the city by himself. Mercy. It's always mercy and -- kindness -- with him. It always has been."

"Have you known my papa a long time, then?" Cosette asked, trying to sound less eager than she was and, she felt, succeeding rather admirably at it, given the circumstances.

For a few moments he said nothing, staring down bleakly into his tea; then he glanced up at her, with an oddly distant look, as if he wasn't looking at _her_ at all. "I thought I did," he said, rather bitterly. "For years I thought I did. For years I have been a fool." He shook his head, then picked up the teacup again and drained it. Cosette refilled it, and he took it in his hands without drinking, absorbing the warmth. "And for a moment I thought you were her, out there in the dark, by the river."

"You thought I was who?"

"That -- woman from Montreuil. The one even Jean Valjean couldn't save from me, in the end." His lips twisted. "Your mother."

"My mother?" Cosette said, her eyes widening at this new revelation. "But who is--" 

Before she could press further, there was a sharp, half-strangled noise from the doorway; Cosette turned quickly. She had thought they were being quiet, but somehow they had woken her papa; he stood in the doorway in his nightshirt, his face quite as pale and faint as the stranger's had looked on the street below, looking entirely as if he might collapse at any moment. Worried, she got to her feet and took his arm, but he stood unmoving, staring across the kitchen at the man, who sat looking back in blank and sullen silence. 

"Javert," he said.


	2. Chapter 2

Dear Marguerite,

I know this is a letter that I can never send for so many reasons, but I must tell someone more intimate than my diary, and you would have loved to hear a story like this one when we were girls, even if it were only imagination. I can hardly believe it has happened to me--! I have had an Adventure. If I think about it too hard it all seems quite impossible: there is a handsome young man (and he loves me! and I him -- and we kissed, once, in the garden), and a tall dark stranger with a mysterious past somehow connected to my father and my mother. My mother! Papa still cannot speak of it, and I do not want to press him too hard, for he seemed terribly shaken by these events even after he returned from seeing that same stranger home again, and although he has always been quite strong, you know, I do worry for him when he takes his moods.

He is out, now, calling on Marius (for my Marius was the very boy whose life they saved together) at his grandfather's house -- he says that Marius will live, the doctor is almost sure of it, and I must believe it myself; but that he is too ill yet to have a girl at his bedside. And so I write, to keep from wearing holes in the carpet and worrying Toussaint.

But Marguerite, to think that I had a mother, once -- a mother who someone besides papa knew. There is so much I want to know: how did she meet papa? What did my stranger (I find I cannot help but think of him so; it is all such a fairy-tale) mean when he said that someone had tried to save her from him? Do I look so very much like her? Did she love me? What happened to her, and what happened to me, and how is it that I do not remember her at all?

If I cannot ask Papa, then at least I might -- forgive me, Marguerite. I must write another letter before he gets home.

Your devoted friend,  
Cosette

 

* * *

 

M. Javert,

I hope this letter finds you well and much recovered. Papa is with Marius this afternoon at his grandfather's house, so I cannot ask him for your address; I hope it is alright that I have this sent to the station-house and that it will find its way to you from there. And for that -- Papa being with Marius, I mean -- I must thank you. Are all men so? For you did not tell me that you helped him, and I quite believe that if you had not told half the story, leaving out the parts to your credit, Papa would have told me nothing at all, and left me to think Marius had been carried safely home by angels! For he is safe, and the doctor says he will surely recover; so I do thank you, monsieur, very much, and forgive you and papa entirely.

I do have so many more questions I should like to ask, but I am sure you are very busy, so I will hold myself to only one: what can you tell me about my mother?

With thanks again,  
Cosette Fauchelevent

P.S. Please address your reply to the care of the porter of no. 7.

 

* * *

 

Mlle Fauchelevent,

I know no more than M. Fauchelevent does and almost certainly less.

Javert.

 

* * *

 

M. Javert,

Since you know my papa so well, I should think you must know the turns he takes sometimes; but perhaps it is different with you, since you have known each other so long and the events do not need retelling so much as remembering. In any case, papa does not like to speak of the past with me, as it makes him terribly sad, and I don't like to distress him more than he needs for his own good. So, as you see, I have heard nothing of my mother from him, either before our meeting or since, and anything you might tell me would be more than I know now.

If there is anything at all I can do for you in return, you need only ask.

Sincerely,  
Cosette Fauchelevent

 

* * *

 

Mlle Fauchelevent,

What do you mean by _for his own good_?

Javert.

 

* * *

 

M. Javert,

Did my mother look like me?

Cosette Fauchelevent

P.S. I have used your address from your reply, instead of continuing to bother the police with my notes.

 

* * *

 

Mlle Fauchelevent,

Her hair was lighter and shorter. She was thinner, and her cheeks redder. The eyes are the same, and the mouth, but that is all. She called herself Fantine.

What is wrong with M. Fauchelevent?

Javert.

 

* * *

 

Dearest Marguerite,

Her name was Fantine! My mother's name -- Fantine. _Fantine!_

Cosette

 

* * *

 

M. Javert,

If I do not watch him closely and make him care for himself, papa will go without fires even in the winter and eat only black bread every day; when he is very upset, sometimes he does not eat at all. He says that certain men deserve this, but I cannot believe it to be true; even the sisters of the convent took their vows by choice, and to serve, and not because they deserved no more than to be grown-up spiders or wood-lice. So I eat with him so he will eat as I do, and stay with him so he keeps a fire to warm me. And I have told you that speaking of the past and certain other things makes him quite unhappy; I try not to press too hard, for of course I don't want him to be unhappy.

Since you left I have been very careful with him, and not spoken of you or asked anything that might worry him, or spoken of England at all, for he already seems troubled enough, and very tired still although he tries to hide it. He has been to see Marius every day for the news, and he seems happier when he returns and it is good, or at least better, so I do not try to stop him going. (And I must admit I am also thankful to hear it.)

I have had our housekeeper buying fresh flowers, to cheer this awful little place as much as I can, and whiter curtains, and all the strawberries he can eat, but I can see the worry in him, and it worries me also. If we could go back to our old house he might do better, but I don't think he would agree, not after we moved so suddenly and quickly.

But I must thank you again, for I think you must not have mentioned to him that we met in the city, and instead at the doorstep or some such thing, for he has not forbid me to go out again -- not that I shall, of course -- or spoken a word of it. I am glad that he has one fewer thing to worry over, even if it adds another to my list of mysteries; of course there are so many of those that until recently I had not even tried to keep track, but now they seem to pile up like leaves. Why should he assume that you were at our door, if you had quarreled after bringing him home? And why should you have done such a thing at all? You see how even answers beget more questions! Once I could have ignored them, but now that I have had a glimpse of light I cannot close my eyes again -- monsieur, I have written all of this, and no doubt bored you with trivialities that you did not care to know and not yet thanked you once! Please do not think me silly and ungrateful -- my mother's name is a treasure beyond words, and I thank you, thank you, thank you.

Sincerely,  
Cosette Fauchelevent

P.S. Another question (forgive me): if I do not look much like Fantine, save for my eyes, how is it that you mistook me for her that night?

 

* * *

 

M. Fauchelevent,

I write to inform you that the man we spoke of on the night of June 5th perished several years ago on board the galley _Orion_ in a remarkably curious effort to rescue an honest sailor from certain death. Because of the nature of his demise in contrast to his previous activity, it was reported upon in very respectable newspapers at that time and is therefore widely known, especially to the police, who upon hearing of it those years ago closed all related investigations, and is self-evidently true. You need not fear his return.

Inspector Javert.

 

* * *

 

Inspector Javert,

It is kind of you to go to such trouble for a brief conversation.

Ultime Fauchelevent

 

* * *

 

M. Fauchelevent,

A man once told me that Conscience is the highest law. At the time I thought him a fool and a cheat; I have come to know that he was correct and I was in error. That same man also told me that an error must be corrected by continued effort when resignation is rejected.

As you can see, it is not kindness, but necessity and duty.

Inspector Javert.

 

* * *

 

Inspector Javert,

The one need not preclude the other, nor should it.

Fauchelevent

 

* * *

 

M. Javert,

Have I offended you? Was my letter too long, or too full of questions or nonsense? If so, please forgive me, and tell me only what you wish to, or ask anything you wish to know, and I shall try to answer without so many words.

Only, do reply. Papa is in such a strange mood lately, and I am still afraid to ask him about it. He has found some pretty old candlesticks and set them out on the mantle, and he looks at them for an hour at least every day, where he never used to have eyes for pretty things, unless he meant to give them to me. I cannot think what it means, and I fear I may go mad with curiosity, for I cannot even talk to Toussaint about it lest he hear of it and Marius has not yet come out of his fever. You are my only hope for answers to _some_ thing.

Please write soon,  
Cosette Fauchelevent

 

* * *

 

M. Fauchelevent,

When speaking of the one Law, that is all very well. But the other is not always in accordance. Shall it be disregarded entirely? It must be, or else Justice will fail, but it cannot be, lest everything fall to chaos. I do not know what I ought to do, only what I must do: my duty. I have done so to the best of my understanding. Thus, my letter.

Javert.

 

* * *

 

Mlle Fauchelevent,

He thought that I intended to take him in to the station. I left because I could not do so, as he had done nothing to deserve it. No doubt when he saw me returned he thought that I had come to a different decision and come once more for him instead of for reasons I find I cannot explain, myself. As for your third question, it was dark that night and seeing M. Fauchelevent and others earlier had caused me to remember her very clearly, so that the episode was fresh in my mind.

On what street is your old house? If something alarmed him there, there may well have been trouble. Is the convent you mention nearby?

Javert.

 

* * *

 

Mlle Fauchelevent,

I have received your second note. These are heavy silver candlesticks? Have you seen them before?

Javert.

 

* * *

 

M. Javert,

I confess I find myself somewhat confused. I don't understand at all why Papa should worry over that, and I find I must understand less than I thought what had happened to you the night we met. And it is so difficult to go back to not wondering about all these things, now that I have begun -- you cannot imagine it. I feel eaten up inside, like a cat, wanting to understand everything that I see. It is like those moments when I first knew what it was to love, and I wanted nothing more than to love forever.

Let me think: I know that Papa must have gone out, quite late, and in secret, in his uniform, although why I do not know. Some time later, he found Marius, and helped him away from a barricade, and saved you from people who meant to kill you while he was doing that, and came home without the uniform. Since you are with the police, you cannot have been in danger from the others in the Guard, so it must have been from the others; and I know that Marius is not in the Guard, yet you must have been in the same place. Perhaps he saved you from Marius, and then you saved Marius with him later! It is such a tangle, and I am not at all sure I have it right even now. But it is the best I can do.

And now I wonder, reading and rereading your letters: what episode do you mean, monsieur? Did you know my mother well, then, better than you knew papa? Did you all three know each other, perhaps?

As for the house, it is quite lovely -- it has a beautiful wild garden, and a little shed where papa insists on staying most of the time, when I cannot coax him away, and pretty gates in the back of the garden that open onto the Rue du Babylone, although the house itself is nearer the Rue Plumet. That is the garden that I meant to go to that night. But I do not think anything alarmed him in particular: he told me it was for his business that we must go away.

Although he has made no mention of it for weeks... Oh! I wish I could ask him whether we still must go. It is terrible. But I do not wish to remind him of it.

The convent is the one in Petit-Picpus; for years Papa and my uncle were gardeners there, and I grew up in the convent-school. After uncle died, we came away to the house, and were very happy. I should have been happy to stay there.

Your friend in curiosity,  
Cosette Fauchelevent

P.S. Yes, the candlesticks are of silver, and quite solid. But how did you know?

 

* * *

 

Mlle Fauchelevent,

Like M. Fauchelevent, you give yourself too little credit. Your summary is very nearly correct and the details are not important.

I still think it may be more than business that drew him away from that house; he has a keen ear for danger, and a deft way of getting out of it, once he has got in. If you could guess at or find out any more about what upset him, it could prove very helpful. But you must not try to go back there alone again. If he avoids a place, it must be for good reason.

This uncle you write of -- M. Fauchelevent's brother? How did you come to live in the convent?

You did not mention whether he had had the candlesticks before or not.

Javert.

 

* * *

 

M. Javert,

Do not think I did not see you didn't say how you came to know my mother, nor whether you three knew each other!

But I cannot think of what might have alarmed papa; nothing seemed terribly different, except that Marius came to the garden instead of to the Luxembourg; and I had not thought papa knew of that at all! Though if he did not, how could he have known to find him at the barricade? And still, how could he have? I will try to find out, but he will not want to talk of it. And of course I shall not go back alone -- why should I?

As for the candlesticks, of course I had never seen them before; I should have, if they had been here, for papa allowing himself fine things is so odd that even in this life of mysteries I ought to have taken notice!

I await your response,  
Cosette Fauchelevent

 

* * *

 

Mlle Fauchelevent,

I did not know Fantine well, though at the time I was convinced -- in error -- that I knew everything that was necessary. She spoke of you, briefly, and would have done anything in her power to protect you and see you safe and well, but I was blind and deaf, and without M. Fauchelevent's intervention in rescuing her from me, I would have done her a deep injustice. At the time I was an idiot and a fool and could not see beyond the immediate; I revenged myself on him for the crime of being compassionate, and caused both of them great harm. Without his aid and protection and without you to bring her comfort, she died.

If you come across more information that might be of use in aiding either M. Fauchelevent or yourself, I will accept it. I must do what I can.

Javert.


	3. on the growing of strawberries and scarlet poppies

Cosette had read the latest note a dozen, a hundred times, and it grew no less bewildering and no more revealing. She felt alternately furious and fascinated; it seemed as if she stood before a bright window, veiled with countless lace curtains that were being snatched away one at a time, never quite revealing the view beyond; she wanted to know more, yet she did not know if she wanted to, at all.

She had not written back; it had been well over a week. No doubt he thought she hated him for it. And she did -- how could she not? And yet she did not, for the man she remembered -- that dark and haunted face, that dull anguish -- he did not seem like the man he himself described, the man who could hurt her papa so and kill her mother. No, she thought: she hated the man he had written of; she did not hate the man who had written the letter, who had told her that her mother loved her and that her papa had always been kind and good.

But the distinction was too thin and it worried at her, even though she had resolved not to reply. She did her best to hide her feelings, good and bad alike, and took to spending the hours while Papa was gone in the sitting-room, staring at the candlesticks on the mantel, instead of planning or writing her next letter, or rereading the old ones to treasure the scraps of information within.

But they did not talk, and the peace they gave to papa seemed to elude her; even linting sheets for Marius, though she kept at it with the passion and diligence he deserved, held no comfort. The curtains could not be re-hung, and she could not stop thinking about the mystery that lay beyond them.

Nor, for that matter, had she been able to guess at what Javert had been getting at by danger that lay near the house on the Rue Plumet; but the more she thought about it as she worked over the packages of lint, the more she thought there must have been something to it: for Papa _must_ have known about Marius before he set off to the barricades to save his life -- and they had stopped going to the Luxembourg -- and then they had moved -- 

It was no good. There were too many things she did not know, no matter what Javert thought. But she could do one thing that he could not: she waited, new package in hand, until her papa came home from delivering the old, and said: "Papa, must we still go away to England, with Marius so ill?"

He took the package and smiled at her; it was his usual small, gentle smile, but there was a deep pain underneath, so well-buried that if she had not been urged by a small, deep imaginary voice to pay very close attention for clues, she might have missed it entirely in her joy at the answer. "No," he said. "We will stay."

"Is he well?" she asked, falling back into her usual question.

"Improving," said her papa, as he always did.

"And are _you_ well?" she asked, which was not at all usual. But that sadness had reminded her of the last time she had pressed him too hard for answers -- answers which Javert had given her, and she felt a little guilty, and more than a little worried.

He blinked, then smiled again and took her hand, squeezing it gently. "My Cosette, while I have you, I will always be well."

She could not help her own smile -- it shook itself free from the worry and anger and grief she had been struggling with on her own for a full week, leaving her feeling just as if she were a little girl again; for it was ridiculous, and sentimental, and childish, and she did not care at all. "Oh, Papa," she said, and threw her arms around him, heedless of the package. "I do love you, but -- oh, I am so tired of these walls. Might we go for a walk? Just a short one?"

He had startled a bit when she embraced him, but soon set the package down on the bureau and stroked her hair gently, comfortingly, until she felt she might burst into tears with the relief of it -- and said, "Yes, of course."

 

They went to the Luxembourg, and for a little while Cosette contented herself with air and freedom and the sights of the birds and the flowers; they threw crumbs to the swans, walked the paths, and took shelter from the late summer sun beneath the deep shade of a tree until she felt she might almost be happy again. 

She closed her eyes; leaned back into the support of the bench; said, "Papa, tell me--" and sensed, rather than felt, the way he stilled briefly beside her. "About strawberries," she finished; it had been what she had been going to say, since it was innocent enough a topic, but it suddenly no longer felt so safe and fine an afternoon. She went on, rather in a rush. "About how to grow them, I mean -- the ones we had this June were so nice, don't you think? Especially in those little tarts, with the glaze. I think I should like to grow them myself, so that we had only to go out to the garden to find them, instead of all the way to the market. I can't remember if you and uncle ever grew them in the convent, but surely you must know how?"

"Ah," he said, and though his voice was calm and warm as ever, she fancied he was relieved. "Yes, I do; and they ought to grow well for you, if we find the right seeds. Some berries do best in full sun; some in pots; some will grow quite sweet in the wild, if they have a little looking-after; they like the shade of other plants to rest under."

"Like we are," Cosette said, opening her eyes to look up at the wide-spread leaves and the sunlight that filtered through them, then over at her papa, who was gazing off into the distance.

"Yes, like that," he said. "When planting season comes, we shall see what will be best."

But surely they could not plant strawberries in the Rue de l'Homme Armé, even in pots; there was not enough room, and it was far too dreary, and -- "Do you promise?"

He looked at her with a little surprise for a moment, then smiled slightly. "Yes; you shall have your strawberries. I promise."

"Good," she said, and smiled back. "Tell me more about them, please, papa."

But while he spoke -- papa knew quite a lot about strawberries, as she had known he would; how to grow them, and which kinds to grow for what purpose, alongside whichever other flowers, and various ways to help them bloom faster and bear sweeter -- her mind drifted a little, and she found she was waiting for something. It was for Marius, of course, she realized after a moment's thought. 

She knew very well that he was lying terribly sick and injured at his grandfather's house, and yet she still somehow expected to see him coming down the path, as he had always used to do. They had not been to the Luxembourg for quite some time, not since before Marius had found her garden gate, and so it seemed a natural place for him to be. And she wondered: had they stopped coming because of him? She seemed to remember her papa asking her something about him, quite a while ago; at the time it had not seemed important, for Marius had been handsome enough, but she had not known him. The details would not come to her, but there had almost definitely been something. Then papa _had_ known him. Perhaps he had found out about the garden in the Rue Plumet, also; she almost blushed to think of it.

But if he had disapproved enough to move them, why should he have saved Marius? And if there _had_ truly been business in England, how was it all canceled? And, since they showed no signs of moving back to the Rue Plumet, even though there was now no business either way, where would the strawberries grow?

It was that last that concerned her -- not about the strawberries, but that they had not moved back, even though there was now neither business nor visits from Marius. She did not think papa liked the apartment in the Rue de l'Homme Armé any more than she did, and he knew that _she_ did not like it, and yet they stayed, and stayed...

Perhaps Javert had been right, after all.

 

They did not stay too long at all in the Luxembourg; the sun was still quite high and the swans were still eagerly hunting about for crumbs left by luncheoners when they left their shady bench and walked back down the paths, but Cosette, still thoughtful, did not protest, and her papa lingered only for a moment at the gate, glancing about the streets before setting out again.

On the way home, he bought some poppies from a child selling them for a few sou a bundle and, when she looked at them curiously, said a little sheepishly: "I had only been thinking of the way you used to wear them in your hair, last year -- you seemed so happy then."

"I was happy," she said, and on impulse took one from the bundle and tucked it gaily into her hair, behind her ear. "I am happy, Papa, even if I worry sometimes; but everything will be quite all right. I do miss the garden, though, and the piano..."

"Yes," he said, but it was the sort of _yes_ she knew very well meant that she had touched on a subject he wouldn't talk about any further; the sort of yes that only a few months ago she would have respected absolutely and thoughtlessly. The former she still would, for he deserved it; the latter, as she had written in those silly notes, seemed impossible any longer.

So Cosette smiled and took his arm again even as she wondered. "So you shall simply have to take me walking more often, so I can find all the flowers I need, even if you must buy them for me instead of letting me gather them on my own."

"Of course," he said again, and smiled a little as she laughed; the sweet edges of it lingered at the corners of his mouth all the way home. It faded only as they stepped inside and she took the poppies from him to put them into water; he excused himself away to his study, and she stopped a moment to watch him go. 

When she had found a likely vase and arranged them nicely, she set them on the bureau; they blazed red against the brown paper that wrapped Marius's package, and she frowned slightly at it: it felt as if she had gone all afternoon without worrying about him, she had been so busy indulging first her freedom, then her curiosity and being -- happy in it. For a moment she felt distressed over having put him from mind, even for an instant; it made her think guiltily of the time she _had_ forgotten him, before that wonderful letter over the wall...

Though Papa had been happy that afternoon also, especially when he had bought the flowers, and he had spoken of the past on his own, even if it had been only the fields of a year ago, and that was not nothing; besides, Marius would certainly wake from his fever soon -- hadn't the doctor grown more and more reassuring lately, and hadn't Papa gone every day to make sure of it? When he did wake, they would tell Papa, and surely she would be allowed to go to him at once. Until then, she could do nothing for him but make lint for his bandages; but she might do something more for papa, who had saved his life.

She thought about that, too, as she pinned out a new bit of linen for scraping; how happy the poppy in her hair and a little joke had seemed to make him, and how he had gone so still in the Luxembourg, when she had been about to ask a question. But had _that_ to do with Marius, somehow? The soft lint built up; she began another sheet, and thought, and thought. 

It must have, she decided, even as their move from Rue Plumet must _not_ have. But what was she to do about it? Papa would not answer and Marius could not. There was only one answer to that, and she knew it, even as she told herself she did not _want_ to know.

She scraped down two more napkins to lint and charpie before she let herself think it: she had no one else to turn to. And hadn't she told her own self that she didn't hate him as he was now? But not hating him didn't mean that she wasn't angry, as she rarely ever had been before: that she had never known her mother, and could not remember her face or voice, or the touch of her hand; that for all her life, she had not even known her name; that papa was so hurt by her loss that he could not speak of her at all-- If she had met Monsieur Javert, that dark night, knowing what he had told her before-hand, oh! what she might have wanted to say to him.

But remembering that dark figure poised at the river's edge calmed her, almost against her will, and with a flash of strange insight, the thought came to her, almost distant in its coldness: I could have done nothing worse to him than he would have done to himself, if I had not spoken.

It startled her to think it; she recalled the shadow of his hat falling from the parapet, and the way he had not paid it any mind at all; the way he had so easily accepted the thought that she was a ghost rather than a girl, and her knife-hand, frozen mid-stroke, trembled and ripped the napkin. "Oh," she said, and set it down wearily, brushing a bit of escaped hair back away from her face and gathering up the piles of lint into the beginnings of a new package. There was enough that Papa might go twice again tomorrow if she worked in the morning as well.

She did not want to think of having saved Javert from having done violence to himself any more than she wanted to think of asking another favor of him; but again, she could not stop. She thought of it all that evening, and was quiet at supper, though she ate well so as not to worry anyone, or give Papa any excuse not to eat his own food, then retired early, saying she only wanted to read a little before bed.

And she tried; but the words on the page blurred together, and the gilt edgings reflected the candlelight into her eyes, and the book felt as heavy as lead -- and with a sigh, she got up, put it back on the shelf, and carried her candle over to her writing-desk.


	4. Chapter 4

M. Javert,

I think you must have been correct about some danger at our old house, though I cannot begin to guess what it was. Papa will neither talk about it nor think for an instant of the idea of returning even so late as next year, though he has as much as told me that he has given up the plan of going to England altogether. It has been so long now since we left the Rue Plumet that it may be too late for you to find it out -- but I suppose it has not been long enough for Papa to think it safe... if he ever will again.

If you do wish to help me as you said you would, then please find out what is wrong and why Papa is afraid -- and how we might move back there. You might also stop at the Gillenormand house, in Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, and ask for news of Marius. I know that you will not try to hide it from me if he is -- not getting better, as Papa might try to spare me. I want to know the truth, always, even if I do not like it.

Cosette Fauchelevent

 

* * *

 

Mlle Fauchelevent,

I have been to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire as you requested. I arrived just as the doctor was leaving and inquired after M. Pontmercy's condition without involving either your name or that of M. Fauchelevent, so you may be assured neither question nor answer will come back to you except through myself.

He is not dead. The wounds which I took to be fatal on the night I last saw him were not so, and while the haemorrhage was very dangerous, M. Fauchelevent was quick enough to help him that the doctor thinks he should not suffer permanently from it, should he recover. His chief danger continues to be from the wound-fever, which has not yet broken, and from the gangrene which afflicts certain injuries he sustained about his chest and arms. When I inquired again, he could not yet give assurance whether or not M. Pontmercy should live, although his condition is slightly less grave than it was originally.

Furthermore, I must report that the doctor is a good man, and required explanation of my intent with regards to M. Pontmercy before he would provide the information I have given above.

I will continue to look into the other matter.

Inspector Javert.

 

* * *

 

M. Javert,

Thank you.

Cosette Fauchelevent

 

* * *

 

M. Javert,

I am sorry for the curtness of my previous note; it was only something of a shock to hear the news put so bluntly. But I did ask for it, and I did mean every word of it; and I do thank you, for both the action and for your truthfulness. It hurts me to think of what I may lose, but I am still glad to know, so that I may hope honestly instead of believing blindly. I shall pray and work all the harder for it.

But I do not understand why the doctor would require an explanation; after all, you helped papa carry him safely to that same house; I have not forgotten that, even if you continue to give papa all the credit. Should that not have made it clear that you care for his health?

Cosette Fauchelevent

 

* * *

 

Mlle Fauchelevent,

M. le Prefet gave a general order some time ago that all doctors who received into their care any man they suspected of being injured in the events of the 5-6th June should immediately report the names and addresses of said men to the police for investigation and arrest, to be tried by the Cour d'Assisses alongside some two thousand of their comrades who were captured during the unrest itself.

It is widely said that few doctors have so far been in compliance with this order. I, myself, have received no such reports of suspicion from any doctor, nor have I heard of any successful investigation or arrests over the issue.

Inspector Javert.

 

* * *

 

Mlle Fauchlevent,

You may also be interested to know that when I had explained to M. Pontmercy's doctor my past interest in his health, with the aid of M. Gillenormand's porter, I learned that said porter had not previously been able to identify either of the men who had assisted M. Pontmercy home after his misadventure. I suspect M. Fauchelevent has not seen fit to identify himself during his visits for reasons of his own. However, as I mentioned before, I did not speak of him.

Inspector Javert.

 

* * *

 

M. Javert,

Thank you -- again -- for the news, and for what you are doing to protect Marius, and to help papa and me. I understand now what you mean.

But I find that I don't know what more to write. I feel like there should be more; I know that there are more things that ought to be said between us, but I do not yet know how to say them. I am so tired of the past stretching out like huge, empty halls, big enough to get lost in forever and tight and closed enough to -- to suffocate in, like a coffin. I feel like I could choke on dust, for not being able to speak of it to anyone at all.

I am sorry. Probably I ought not to send this letter at all -- but I have had done with silence and waiting, so you must endure it.

Cosette

 

* * *

 

Mlle Fauchelevent

In February of this year, was M. Fauchelevent injured in any way? Please reply as immediately as you are able, in care of the station-house, as this is an extremely urgent matter.

Javert.

 

* * *

 

M. Javert,

Yes -- early in the month, Papa burned his arm badly on the stove, and had to stay at home for weeks, as he grew very ill from it but would not let me call for a doctor even once.

C.

P.S. I trust you will soon tell me why you ask.

 

* * *

 

M. Javert,

Is everything all right? You have not forgotten that you must tell me when you can?

Cosette

 

* * *

 

M. Fauchelevent,

I write to inform you of a criminal act which has been committed against you; a certain Jondrette, alias Thenardier, late of Montfermeil, in order to lighten the various charges against him of robbery, blackmail, fraud, conspiracy, escape, attempted murder, etc. through turning over evidence as a spy, has attempted to lodge slanders of murder, kidnapping, and various other activities against your person, though he seemed somewhat uncertain of your name.

As I had some involvement in the case against him, having arrested him in the matter of the robbery and murder attempt in question as well as having recently reapprehended him, and also as I am known to have met both men in question, he presented this slander to me in person. I at once denounced it as the nonsensicality it was.

Unfortunately, there seems no recourse available to address this insult, as in the absence of a reprieve, the death sentence which had been pronounced against him at the trial regarding the aforementioned offenses has been carried out, along with that of one or two others of the same gang who were recaptured alongside him. Furthermore, I have certain knowledge that his wife, an equal threat whom I had occasion to encounter several times, has died, along with the elder of his daughters; the younger has some few months left on her sentence at the Madelonettes, but will likely not prove a danger to you without the influence of the others.

I regret that I cannot be of more assistance in this matter.

Inspector Javert.

 

* * *

 

M. Javert,

What on earth did you tell papa? I recognized your handwriting on the letter he received this morning, and he went quite faint for a moment when he had finished it -- but of course I could not ask him to read it out to me. Now he has shut himself in his office again, and I have only a little time to write this note before he comes out -- please tell me. I cannot bear to be left in the dark any longer.

C.

 

* * *

 

Mlle F,

I may have solved the issue of your previous residence. At the moment I cannot put more in writing. Write to me quickly if he continues to worry.

J.

 

* * *

 

M. the Clerk of Les Madelonettes,

Enclosed please find one thousand francs to be put to the account of Mlle. Jondrette, for her use in whatever manner she wishes.

A Friend

 

* * *

 

M. Javert,

Then come to see me. He will be away this Friday for an hour in the morning and for another just after noon; I shall be quite alone the second time. I will expect you.

C.


	5. a conversation long forgotten returns to mind

Papa had left just after lunch, package of lint in his arms and wearing the same slightly-dazed expression he had had since his letter from Javert; Toussaint had left a few moments later, with a somewhat artificially inflated shopping list; since then, Cosette had waited impatiently at the window, staring down into the street. Would he come? She had not exactly been polite. If he did, would she be able to speak to him -- or even look at him? What had she even been thinking in sending that note? But there was no undoing it, and she did not have to wait long: less than five minutes after Toussaint had gone, a tall figure rounded the corner of the street, strode with purpose to the doorstep of no 7, and was admitted.

So he had got a new hat, Cosette thought distantly, and let the curtains fall down across the window. Her hands were shaking; she smoothed her skirts and hair to steady them and forced herself to square her shoulders and stand tall as if she were a soldier herself. She would not be afraid -- not of him, not of the past, not of the future, not of herself. When Javert knocked at the door, she was ready; and, with one last deep breath, she opened the door and looked up at him.

She had thought somehow that he would look different, after what he had told her; that she would look at him and see a monster, a menacing, shadowy nightmare -- but he looked almost exactly as she remembered him: tall and sad and stern, his coat wrapped about him like armor despite the midday heat. For a long moment they said nothing but simply stood, watching each other, with uncertainty hanging heavily between them. The words should have come easier to mouth than pen, surely; but they did not, and at last she stepped back out of the doorway and held it open for him to come in.

He took the silent invitation without comment and hung his hat on the hat-stand as she closed the door behind him -- his hair was less rumpled this time, at least, she thought, and had to press her hand over her mouth and turn back to the door under the pretense of checking the lock to keep back a strange, wild laughter.

When she had recovered, she looked back at him; he had looked away from her and stood gazing into the apartment quite as if he had never seen it before; as if he did not remember it at all. She supposed he had been rather badly distressed that night; perhaps he might not.

"Monsieur Javert," she said at last, and his eyes flicked to her immediately. "We don't have much time, so I can't offer you tea." (He did not quite smile, but the corner of his mouth twitched somewhat.) "The sitting room is through here; you can leave your coat, if you are too warm."

Javert did not leave his coat; she had not really expected him to. The sitting room of the apartment was not terribly large, and at the moment was still cluttered with piles of linen and brown paper wrappings; she cleared a stack of the former off of one of the chairs for him, and sat down on the couch. "Sit, please," she said, and he did.

She folded her hands in her lap to give herself a moment longer, then asked: "What frightened papa away from the Rue Plumet?"

"I believe he had encountered an old enemy of his," Javert said after a slight hesitation, "a man who wished both of you ill; he would have moved quite far to get away from him -- even out of the country, perhaps."

"So that was the business? -- but what kind of enemy could papa have? Who could wish him harm?" It seemed impossible... and yet, had not Javert confessed to having done Papa harm, himself, and her mother as well? There was something still lurking in the past, something even Javert, with all his simple honesty had been keeping from her, some dark shadow.

"Mlle Fauchelevent --"

"Cosette," she said, although she was not quite sure why.

The furrow in his brow grew more sharply pronounced and he dipped his chin a little, as if in acknowledgement, and continued: "What is -- I am sorry -- what is the earliest thing you remember?"

She did not have to think hard, the past having been much on her mind over the last few months; so much of it was a dark and dreamy blur, but she had scraped her memories like she had scraped Marius's linen, having nothing else to do but think and worry. "There was a wood, somewhere very far away from here," she said, "and it was very dark; and I was alone in it, fetching water for two -- do not laugh at me, Monsieur, for two monsters -- and Papa came to me, and carried me away from all of it; we were very happy for a while, and then we went to live with Uncle in the convent."

He nodded again, as if totting something up and finding that it came out right, and showed no signs whatsoever of laughing at her silliness. "That would have been in Montfermeil," he said. "The Thenardiers were innkeepers there; they had the keeping of you, because they had lied to your mother and cheated her; M. Fauchelevent found them out, and came to take you from them in her name, though by the time he had found you she was already dead." At this, his previously steady gaze faltered, but, despite staring at the edge of the coffee-table, he continued: "It is the same M. Thenardier that he encountered here, in Paris, in February, and then -- I suspect -- again, some months later, after he had escaped from prison, and perhaps yet again in June. He has been recaptured and executed according to the sentence put against him in absentia. That is what I wrote in the letter."

"Oh," said Cosette, "I see." And she did, distantly, though to hear that her ancient nightmares were quite real after all, and capable of frightening even her papa into doing things he did not want to do, and to leave him so dazed with relief at their final disappearance, was somewhat overwhelming. But she pushed it back to think of later, and focused instead on the rest of it. "-- in February?" she asked. "But--"

"Yes," he said, finally raising his eyes back to hers. "I have every reason to believe that it was he who was captured and injured by Thenardier that day; he escaped through the window after --" and he did smile, then, the same grimacing, humorless thing she half-remembered, "-- after I came in to arrest the lot of them. He would not have been pleased to see me then, rescue or not!"

"He did not want to worry me," she said, slowly; "he wanted to protect me-- he told me he had only brushed up against the stove, and burnt himself, so that I would not worry, knowing..."

"Yes," he said.

She looked down; somehow, without realizing it, she had tightened her hands into fists in her lap; she smoothed them out again, frowning at the deep nail-marks in her palms, over the knife-calluses. "I see," she said again, and looked back up into his eyes again, quite suddenly. "Monsieur," she said, "what else has he been protecting me from?"

"Mlle--"

"I want to know," she interrupted. "How did Papa come to know my mother, and what have they to do with the other man you mentioned that night -- Jean someone? -- and why will he not speak of it to me? And what did you do to her?"

"The other--!" he said, flinching visibly as he cut himself off; but he did not look away again. It seemed to her almost as if he could not; as if she had pinned him to his seat with her stare, like a beetle in an illustration-book. "Did I say that?" he muttered quietly, then scowled again. "That is his business, and not mine to tell."

"But it is mine to hear," she said, "and Papa cannot speak of them; he cries, when he tries to, and can say nothing at all. And you ought to tell me; I want to hear it, and I think that you cannot forget it, or else you would not have mistaken me for my mother's ghost."

He was silent for a long time, his lips tight, face frozen, but she did not feel sorry for what she had said. It was true; and she had not been-- _cruel_ \-- simply as bluntly, unforgivingly honest as he had been with her; and even if it had perhaps been a little unkind to do so, she found she could not bring herself to regret it.

"He is not your father," Javert said at last. "He was the mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer, a town to the west of Montfermeil, where your mother had gone to work. He ran a factory there; for a while, she worked in it until it was discovered that she had had a child, and then she was fired. She did what she could to earn money while the Thenardiers stole it from her; eventually she broke the law. Or rather I thought she had; he disagreed, and carried her from the police station to the hospital. She was dying already then."

He paused, and Cosette said, half to herself, as she had thought before: "--it does not matter if I am not his daughter; he is my papa--"

"I reported on him to the police in Paris, because he had made a fool of me," he continued grimly, after she had finished. "I told them he was a man I had known years before, in the south; in the galleys; a man named Jean Valjean. A criminal. There was trouble; I came to arrest him. I found him by Fantine's bedside; I did not think to spare her the sight. He asked for time to bring you to her; I laughed at him because I did not believe him. She died of it. Some time later he broke out of prison and came to get you, as he had sworn to her he would care for you, should she be unable to. The rest you know."

"In the galleys," she echoed, and -- "No-- oh--!" She clapped her hand over her mouth again, swallowing hard, but despite her resolution to be strong the tears welled inorexably in her eyes and she half-turned away as they built into a sob, though there was no concealing it.

"No--" he muttered, and "oh _damn_ ," and stood up, then sat down again helplessly. "He is a good man," he said, and Cosette's tears came all the faster for it. "Honorable and good-- he has never thought of anything but helping people, he has never been anything but kind and generous to everyone, even to those who turned on him -- he was in the galleys only for stealing bread for his family -- he saved my life, after what I did to him-- "

She took a shuddering breath and shook her head, but could not make herself turn back. "It is-- it isn't that," she said thickly, "I know-- but Monsieur-- oh-- the things I asked Papa when we saw them last year -- the men, chained to the cart, in the highway outside the poppy-fields -- the things I asked him... I asked him what the galley was like. I didn't know-- I said to him--"

Javert stood up again and stepped around the coffee table; he had dug a coarse linen handkerchief from his pocket while she had been turned away and offered it to her silently; she took it and covered her face, letting the guilt break over her in stormy waves that carried away the awful tension and anger of the past week. After some time -- she could not have said how long -- he touched her shoulder, lightly and awkwardly, but she drew more comfort from it than she could have admitted aloud.

"I must go," he said gruffly, after another silence broken only by her quieting sobs. "It'll have been an hour soon since Valjean went to Filles-du-Calvaire."

Had it been an hour? Cosette hadn't the faintest idea, nor did it seem the least bit important. But she nodded jerkily, since she thought she should; he took his hand from her shoulder and stepped back rather too quickly, colliding with the chair he had been sitting in and damning it viciously under his breath. "I am sorry," he said, when she looked up at last; he looked thoroughly embarrassed and out of place, and she did not want to laugh at him -- quite -- but it was almost enough to raise her spirits. She nodded again; he nodded back and hurried to leave without another word, his boots loud and quick in the hall and on the stairs beyond the door.

She did not realize until several minutes later, when she got up to wash her face clean of the tear-stains, that she was still holding his handkerchief.


	6. Chapter 6

M. Javert,

You were right; the trouble has passed, Papa no longer worries, and we have finally moved back again to my little house. I suppose I will have my strawberries next summer after all, although I can hardly seem to think of another June.

I cannot stand to see him shut himself away any longer, now that I know what I know. I have begun to bully him into helping me with the linting, for I do not know what else to do. If he will not have a fire this winter, I will be lost entirely. It is not even quite September; I shall worry about it for months. But I must protect him the way he has protected me for so long.

I may not be able to write to you again, for now I must wait for someone to chance by my garden-gate in the evenings and pay them to take the letter directly, instead of only slipping them to the porter downstairs; nor can I receive letters at all. But perhaps you will be glad that I cannot bother you so often, and that you are not obliged to reply.

Cosette

 

* * *

 

Mlle Cosette,

The Rue Plumet is not greatly out of my way. If there is something I should know, if you place a note within this crack in the gate, I will find it, as you will no doubt shortly find this. You ought to hide it more deeply, that no one passing by should see it by accident.

J.

 

* * *

 

J.,

There is nothing important to report -- I am only making sure that I have the place and manner of it right. Though I once read part of a dreadful novel -- someone had slipped it into the convent, over the wall -- it was a wonderfully awful book, full of intrigue and informants and secret notes and hidden passageways, but I did not get to finish it before the sisters found it and took it away, and I have never seen anything like it since, for of course papa buys all my books. This reminds me of it; you seem to be always reminding me of stories. But I am sure this is an everyday matter for you, and I am talking of nothing, and have already filled this scrap of paper with it.

C.

 

* * *

 

C.,

It is not precisely an everyday matter for me; I have done some work in that area, of course, but in general it is left to others with a more suitable disposition for it, and who are on friendlier terms with the head of that department. However, this is indeed the place I meant, and your note was hidden well.

J.

 

* * *

 

Perhaps I shall run away and take up being a police spy, myself, if I am good at it.

C.

 

* * *

 

What has happened?

J.

 

* * *

 

It is nothing. Papa goes out more often again now, and I go with him only sometimes; I should feel happy for him, that he feels safe enough to leave our walls, but I am lonely, and I cannot stop thinking, and worrying, and wishing. I should not have written that. I love it here, and I love my papa, but I feel as if I am frozen in time and terribly useless, like a doll forgotten in a shop window, and I cannot speak to anyone else of it. Forgive me for worrying you.

C.

 

* * *

 

Look in the thicket to the right-hand side of the gate.

J.

P.S. You should not ask me to forgive you.

 

* * *

 

Dear J.,

I shall ask what I please, and thank you how I please, and I _do_ thank you. I can't imagine how much it must have stung your pride to buy this from some shop or other. Have you read it? I think even you must have done, for I could not stop -- I was up all last night with my curtains drawn to hide the candle-light and by dawn I had finished the whole thing and hidden it safely beneath the mattress, for old time's sake. It is perfectly terrible, and I thought of nothing else for hours. I do not remember enough of the old one to know if it is the very same, but if it is not, it is very like it. I have not been so happy in months, and I shall be even happier if such things keep sprouting in the nettles of my convent-garden.

C.

 

* * *

 

I glanced at a page or two and it seemed to fit the description. I apologize for the nettles.

J.

 

* * *

 

Dear J.,

Now your spy does have something to report at last: a certain young gentleman has finally woken up, or so his doctor says by second-hand rumor, and will certainly live, though he is still feverish and not suited to female company for several more months at the earliest. I suppose I have ruined the effect of the report with the address, it should have been more mysterious, or at least suitably ominous. But I feel very giddy and silly today and cannot bear to rewrite this; besides, we must go out, and I haven't enough time.

C.

 

* * *

 

I have checked the doctor's report and it is accurate. I should further inform you that the porter attempted to stop me from leaving so that he could try to extract the name and situation of the other man who accompanied me in care of that 'young gentleman' some time ago. Again, I did not tell him.

J.

 

* * *

 

Dear J.,

My nettles have grown another book; they are a wonder. I have read it twice now, for I am as madly impatient as ever. There is less lint needed now and so I have less to do. I have gotten much better at the piano again despite my awful knife-calluses and so little practice recently, but reading lets me dream further still.

Are you well?  
C.

 

* * *

 

Yes. Are the candlesticks of earlier still present?

J.

 

* * *

 

I have just gone to check, and they are in the gardener's hut with him, looking very much out of place, even more so than they did on the mantel in that apartment. But so far I have not been able to convince him to move into the house, though I am working on it every day. I forgot to ask you earlier how it was that you knew about them. They must be important, for he loves them so much I am almost a little jealous -- them, and a sweet-smelling little trunk he keeps always shut up beneath his cot. It is as if I have three sisters!

C.

 

P.S. I have also forgotten to tell you that I still have your handkerchief and have washed it, but I do not think it will fit in the fence. Perhaps I might tie it around one of my own books and throw it back over the convent wall in the other direction.

C.

 

* * *

 

I believe they were a gift from a Bishop he knew many years ago in the south, whose household he seems to have considered himself a servant in. I know less than I ought about the matter, as I was not able to investigate it personally. In addition, the records I was able to requisition on the matter were not well maintained and full of contradictions regarding the matter of the items in question and particularly of the candlesticks that accompanied the silver service. You may discard the other item.

J.

 

* * *

 

Your latest note reminds me of something else you said, which I had entirely forgotten. I seem to be always forgetting things -- you must think me terribly absent-minded. It is only that I am still not used to this detective work; I hope I shall improve with time and practice, and be better able to keep my head. -- You mentioned his family. Now that I think of it I cannot believe I could forget; it is awful and ungrateful of me. I have never even thought of it; he seemed to appear like magic from nowhere, to spirit me away like a fairy, and I suppose I have thought of him so ever since. _Do_ I have sisters?

C.

 

* * *

 

As far as I am aware, he never married. He had a sister, and years ago I suspect he made some attempts at finding her, but apparently did not succeed.

I do not find you absent-minded; anyone might have been understandably distracted, given the surrounding events. I found your reaction entirely admirable, as well as your accurate recall of the situation now.

J.

 

* * *

 

Dear J.,

Thank you. You will not want me to thank you, and I am sure you are standing outside the garden wall staring at this paper and feeling quite awkward and trying to think of the best way to tell me not to do so, and not to be grateful, and not to care, for you do not deserve it, but I do, and I will. If you want to know how I know this -- I have had years of practice knowing it and dealing with it. And now you will feel awkward about that. I do not care. I had rather you felt awkward than undeserving. I do not think I could have lasted these five months without your notes and your help. Is there any chance of finding her now, even the slightest?

C.

 

* * *

 

I will make the attempt. It may require me to be gone or very busy for some time.

J.

 

* * *

 

Dear J.,

I don't think I have ever said it in so many words, though I have meant it, and perhaps I would not be brave enough to say it if I knew you would see this tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that, but my last note has been here untouched for a week already, and so I will replace it with this now:

I forgive you.

Cosette

 

* * *

 

Mme Jeanne Valjean  
No. 3 Rue du Sabot

 

* * *

 

Mme Valjean,

If you once had a brother Jean, and if you would like to meet him again, please come to the Rue du Babylone this Sunday evening.

A Friend

 

* * *

 

Dear J.,

I have written to her, with the help of a young workman for delivery boy, though I fear it was clumsy enough. I hope it will reach her. I hope she will come. I hope he will be happy. I hope I have done the right thing. I hope.

C.

 

* * *

 

Dear J.,

I think she came as I asked and met him in the street yesterday. He has said nothing about it still, but he was very late coming home that night, and he had been crying -- but he was smiling, too. And I tell you so you will know the worst of me, and stop asking me not to be grateful to you for the things you have done for me: I was jealous all week, and in a terrible mood, and half of my last note was a lie, because I wanted him to myself, as it has always been, and I did not want to share with any sisters -- mine or his -- and I almost regretted sending for her. But now that it is done I am glad of it, and ashamed of how I felt, because he does not love me any less for also loving her.

C.

P.S. You have not written to me in too long. There, you see? I am demanding and greedy, too.

 

* * *

 

You are brave and honest in a way most people cannot hope to be.

J.

 

* * *

 

I think that by _most people_ you mean _not myself_ , but you have done every bit as much and more to help him as I have, and you began while thinking we would hate you for trying. What is that if not brave? And what have you been with me, if not honest in a way no one else has ever been, a way that has made me think where before I only felt?

C.


	7. a frosted leaf may substitute itself for a flower

November had sped by just as the months before it had crawled, hastened on its way by plots and dreams. Winter had come, and Cosette had not yet managed to make her papa give up his shed, but she had devised a strategy of visiting him there often but unexpectedly, so that he had begun to keep at least a little fire burning constantly in his stove to be built up when she arrived; it was not enough, to her mind, but it was a start. Towards the end of the month he went out at night oftener and alone and came back distant-eyed and happy; but her jealousy stayed gone, as if it had never come in the first place, and she found that she was mostly happy, too.

Javert had made himself scarce, or at least had not left a new note since her last -- but she had been a little forward, she knew; perhaps he had locked himself up in his own garden shed, if he had one. Most likely he did not, and lived in a little apartment not so different from the ones in the Rue de l'Ouest or the Rue de l'Homme Armé.

She thought about that sometimes, when her mind wandered as she walked in the frost-rimed garden or played some piano piece or other that she knew too well: did he live alone, in the small and spartan apartment she had conjured up for him? Was there a Mme Javert? In six months she had grown to feel as if she knew him well, and yet she knew so little _about_ him. But she suspected there was not; it was a guess, a hunch, rather than a deduction; born of that first night, when he had looked so romantically tragic that she had not been able to be afraid of him at all, when he had looked as lonely and as lost as she had felt.

There had occasionally been an unlikely cat in this invented apartment, mostly because she thought he might like one: a small and haughty thing, not much given to playfulness, though a good mouser. But there had never been cat hair on his coat -- you see, she thought, smiling to herself, I am learning the business after all -- and he had been able to come and go too freely to have one in reality. But it kept finding its way back to her thoughts, anyway.

She was idly thinking about it again that evening as she looked out of the gate into the street beyond: Javert in some simple chair, next to his stove, the cat perched on his knee but quite refusing to be petted, thinking whatever things he thought. Mysterious police business, perhaps, or else how to get her to report the news on her papa without saying any more kind things about him. Perhaps that was why he was so long in writing; for certainly she could think of no way to do it, herself.

"Cosette?"

"Papa," she said, looking back with a smile -- he came into the front garden more often now, but not so often yet that it had stopped giving her a little jolt of happiness to see him. "Good evening."

"Good evening," he returned, and smiled also. His smiles came more and more easily, lately, and for that alone she was grateful to Mme Jeanne, who she still had never even seen. "You are not cold, are you?"

"No; my shawl is warm enough. And you?"

He came to stand beside her, as near the gate as she had ever seen him. "I am fine," he said; and indeed he was wearing the fine new scarf she had told Toussaint to buy for him. She laid her head against his shoulder; after a moment, he settled his arm around her, and they stood in silence for a while, watching the colors fade from the street, leaving only lamplight.

"I went to see M. Pontmercy again this morning," he said at length, and she blinked in surprise, but managed to keep still. "He is nearly recovered now; I think they will let him have visitors soon. Perhaps even tomorrow, or the day after."

"Oh," Cosette said, for lack of anything else to say. She somehow had not realized that it would be so soon; she had grown so used to _not_ seeing Marius that it came as a strange, numb sort of surprise to think of doing it at last, and she could not quite understand how she felt about it. She was glad that he was recovered, of course; she had prayed for him every day, but--

Papa took his arm from about her and turned her slightly to look into her face, concern creeping into his eyes. "Are you all right, Cosette? Come, let us go inside."

"I'm fine," she said, but obediently followed him past both the nettle-thicket and the tall tree where she and Marius had stood in despair all those months ago, and back into her little house.

The warmth wrapped around them instantly; until he shut the door against it, she had not realized how cold it actually had been. He lifted the shawl carefully away from her shoulders and lifted her muff from her wrists as if she were a little child, setting them aside, then took her hand, led her to the sofa before the fireplace, and sat beside her. "Now," he said, "what is the matter?"

"I don't know." She looked down at their hands, still clasped together, and sighed. It helped a little. "I -- I suppose I only did not think it would be so soon."

"Ah," he said, "well."

"Papa," she said, keeping her head down, "you never told me-- how it was you came to rescue him there."

His hand was very still under hers for long moments. "I suppose I didn't," he said finally. "You had gone to bed early that night; sometime after midnight I went out into the street and met a boy there; he had a note. It was for you."

"Marius sent me a note?"

"It said he loved you and intended to die." 

The old sorrow with which Papa usually avoided the past was creeping into his voice; she glanced up at him and tried to smile. "And so you went to find him for me," she said, hating the way her voice trembled a little. But how _could_ he have -- how could Marius have done it? He had said that he would die; but to die of love and to go and be killed bloodily on purpose seemed so vastly different.

Papa only nodded, but it was enough; she hugged him tightly, pressing her face against his chest, and felt him pat her back gently. "Thank you," she mumbled into his shoulder, closing her eyes against the tears that threatened to come.

"You'll see him soon," he said quietly.

"But," she said, and pushed back a little. "Papa..."

He let her go, hand sliding from her back to her shoulder. "Yes?"

"I am not sure I want to, yet," she said slowly, realizing only as she did that it was true. She was fond of him, of course -- perhaps she loved him still -- but the strength of it was gone; it no longer filled her like sunlight and blotted out everything else, but drifted away like a pleasant mist when she tried to remember how it had felt.

And in its absence she was angry; angry that he had wanted to make a two-day's separation into a lifetime of loneliness and guilt for her, and tell her only after she could not stop him; angry that he had not cared for her feelings enough to come to see her in the Rue de l'Homme Armé before going to get himself killed, had her papa not been so brave and good, to risk himself for a boy he did not even like-- and she found herself trembling and dry-eyed, angry even that Marius had let her cry for hours beside him without so much as noticing that she was there, and would have made that her last memory of him.

"Cosette? Are you all right?"

"Papa," she said, reaching up to touch his hand, "I am sorry. I am so sorry... but I don't think I want to marry him."

"Oh," he said.

She smiled again, this time managing it a little bit better, and took a deep breath. "It is only that -- I think I would rather love someone who wanted to _live_ for me."


End file.
